The Catholic organization that commissioned a historic survey of U.S. Catholics’ beliefs about Holy Communion is lamenting that American bishops have taken little interest in it.
In October 2024, when the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) were conducting two campaigns, the Vatican’s sponsored Synod on Synodality and their Eucharistic Revival, the Real Presence Coalition (RPC) published what it said was the single largest survey of lay Catholics ever completed in the USA.
“One would think that the ‘listening Church’ would be bending over backwards to ‘listen’ to the voices of thousands of lay Catholics on why they felt there had been a loss of faith in the Real Presence and their recommendations on how this problem could best be addressed,” said a member of the Coalition, who preferred to remain anonymous.
“One would think that the leaders of the Eucharistic Revival would be beating down the doors of the RPC to understand the thoughts of those who had been surveyed. But, alas, this was not the case. If fact, it seemed the bishops went out of their way to avoid hearing about the survey results.”
The RPC sent LifeSiteNews a timeline of their attempts to share this information with the USCCB:
- September 17, 2024: RPC members decided to publicly release the survey findings on October 15, 2024. RPC sent email to Bishop Andrew Cozzens, head of the USCCB Eucharistic Revival, offering to review the survey results with him personally prior to the public release.
- September 23: Bishop Cozzens responded to the email but declined the offer to review the survey results with him and suggested trying to schedule a discussion with Jason Shanks, the CEO of the National Eucharistic Congress.
- September 24: Jason Shanks declined the offer to review survey results prior to their publication, stating that he would review the findings once they were publicly released on October 15.
- October 5: RPC sent a message to Archbishop Timothy Broglio, head of the USCCB, offering to delay the public release of the survey findings if Archbishop Broglio would prefer for RPC to present the findings at the USCCB November Fall Meeting scheduled for November 11-14 in Baltimore. This would have given the bishops the opportunity to see the results prior to their public release.
- October 12: Archbishop Broglio contacted the RPC requesting the findings be emailed to him. The results were immediately sent to the archbishop, and he confirmed receipt. The email to Archbishop Broglio confirmed the results were scheduled to be publicly released on October 15 unless he specifically requested a delay in order to present the findings at the USCCB November meeting.
- October 15: Having received no further response from Archbishop Broglio, RPC released the results to the public. An open letter was also sent to all U.S. bishops reiterating the offer made to Archbishop Broglio to present the findings at the USCCB November meeting.
- October 24: Having received no response to the offer of presenting the survey findings at the USCCB meeting, RPC decided to organize its own private event in Baltimore across the street from the USCCB meeting on November 11. An invitation to the private event was sent to all 200 ordinary bishops in the United States. The event included cocktails, dinner, and a presentation by the pollster hired by RPC to assist with the study.
- November 8: Archbishop Broglio responded to the message sent to him on October 15, thanking us for sending him the survey and apologizing for not responding sooner. He sent his regrets for not being able to attend our private event on November 11.
- November 9: After sending a series of 3 emails and a facsimile message to 200 U.S. bishops, the results were as follows:
- 5 bishops responded stating they planned to attend (2%),
- 35 bishops responded by saying they would be unable to attend (18%), and
- 159 bishops did not respond (80%).
- November 10: RPC sent a message to Archbishop Broglio offering to provide printed copies of the survey presentation to all bishops attending the general meeting.
- November 11: RPC received a message from Archbishop Broglio declining the offer of printed copies.
- November 11: A total of 5 bishops and 2 priests attended the RPC private event. Attendees asked good questions during the presentation and were highly complementary of the results.
- December 3: RPC sent a message to Bishop Andrew Cozzens offering to meet with him in person to review the survey findings as well as debrief the bishop on the comments made by the bishops who attended our November 11 event in Baltimore. There was no response from Bishop Cozzens as of January 1, 2025.
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